


Steve Encounters a Spitfire (1935)

by EmSonderling



Series: Tipping the Scales [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (steve is the damsel), Dragon AU, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Hurt/Comfort, If You Squint - Freeform, Panic Attack Comfort, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Violence At The Beginning, almost a period/homophobic slur at the beginning, dragon!Darcy, mystery character to be revealed later, pyromantic shenanigans, rescuing damsels in distress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:54:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23409403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmSonderling/pseuds/EmSonderling
Summary: Bucky says Steve likes finding trouble. Steve maintains that trouble just enjoys taking him out for a spin every once in a while, since all the girls they know seem disinclined to do so.Then he meets a new girl(sort of), and sparks fly.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis & May Parker (Spider-Man), Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers
Series: Tipping the Scales [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1272305
Comments: 14
Kudos: 159





	1. Out for a Spin

**Author's Note:**

> So uh  
> This has been sitting in my WiPs for more than a year? that's frightening.  
> However, someone in a discord server linked some creative advice--one of which was: "It isn't a petting zoo"--i.e., stop "petting" your work by going back over and over it. I think after a year marinating in a google doc, there's really no reason not to actually post it  
> This fic isn't perfect, but it doesn't need to be--I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you'll enjoy reading it!  
> Stay safe and healthy, folks!
> 
> And thanks as always to the wonderful Peachgalaxy for all the help and fun brainstorming sessions :3

Bucky said Steve liked finding trouble. Steve maintained that trouble just enjoyed taking him out for a spin every once in a while, since all the girls they knew seemed disinclined to do so. 

Too bad Steve wasn’t particularly good at dancing, even with a willing partner.

Steve’s most recent night out with trouble had resulted in a split lip, black eye, and bruised knuckles. Maybe even a dislocated shoulder. Oh, and he had a face full of Brooklyn alley muck. 

_She really swept the floor with me tonight._

The boot between Steve’s shoulder blades pushed down a little harder. Rather than the snarky quip he longed to spit out, Steve only managed a garbled, hacking whimper.

“Had enough yet, pixie?” Steve flinched as the second man ground a cigarette into the ground beside his head. The acrid smoke curdled his lungs.

_She took my breath away, Buck._

A splatter of phlegm landed next to Steve’s hand, egg-yellow against the filthy ground. Steve hacked up as much breath as he could with 200lbs of thug pressing his body into the pavement. 

He wheezed: “Could...d’...this all…”

The weight on his back increased sharply, forcing the breath from his lungs in a sharp burst. There was an awful _crack_ somewhere around his heart. Steve bit down hard on his bloody lip to stifle a scream.

_Really, Buck. It was aces._

At least, if he died, Bucky and Ma wouldn’t have to worry about him so much anymore.

Steve struggled to process that macabre Freudian slip while splotches of black wriggled at the edges of his vision ( _or maybe they were dancing, like Bucky did with girls in dancehalls, whirling and laughing and spinning and_ — _)_

Steve wondered, briefly, consciously, whether he was imagining the sound of a woman’s voice.

But no, that was definitely a dame. Or maybe loss of oxygen turned the rat-bastard’s voice a few octaves higher—

Heat seared at his back. The weight crushing Steve’s lungs vanished. Awful, putrid air, tainted with the iron bite of blood and grease of rotting fish hit his throat. He gasped down greedy gulps anyway. Steps scuffled by his head, shouts echoing around the alley. Steve’s ears were ringing too hard to make out much more than a few syllables.

“ _Don’t—!!_ ” One of the thugs’ plea became a scream.

Another burst of heat, this time accompanied by a brilliant flash. Steve managed just enough energy to twist his head to one side… only to shut his eyes tight as a jet of flame shot towards his face.

\-----

_Seriously,_ Steve complained, batting away the towel Bucky was trying to dab against the side of his throat, _so what if my girl likes to play a little rough? You come back from dancing looking twice as mauled as me, and half as happy._

_Shut. Up. Punk._ Bucky’s mouth was a grim line. _Stop talking like ‘Trouble’ is anything like a dame and dancing. You’re gonna get yourself killed. And then I’ll bring you back to murder you for it._

_You’d need to be less stupid to manage that, Jerk._ Steve sassed him. But he let Bucky bring the antiseptic-soaked towel back up to his face.

_That right, Punk? Maybe you oughta find enough brains for a real date, before yours end up splattered down some alleyway._

\---------

Steve might have blacked out for a second or two. When he came back around, there was a warm hand pressed to his brow. 

A girl knelt over him. She looked about his age: 17, 18, maybe a little older. It was hard to tell with one eye almost swollen shut. He tried to focus. Streaks of color swam back into clarity, revealing his knight in… patchwork armor.

The girl wore what looked like a trunk’s worth of layered shawls and blankets. A knit cap perched atop her mane of tangled brown hair. Her face, streaked with ashy dirt, still seemed just a touch blurred. That was probably just the swelling around his eye, though.

“Quite the shiner,” she grinned at him. 

At first, Steve thought his inability to form words was due to a general unfamiliarity with being smiled at by pretty (albeit dirty) girls. But no, that wouldn’t account for his chest seizing, ribs a sudden vice around his breath. _Asthma attack?_ Couldn’t be. The hand he stretched towards her shivered with irrepressible tremors. But he didn’t feel cold. 

“Hey,” the girl was suddenly alert. Delicately, she took his tingling hand, gently levered him into a sitting position. “Just breathe. Breathe with me, see?

“I scared those goons off, okay? They’re gone. Poof. Vanished. Nothing to be afraid of, not after the scorching I gave ‘em. And I’m not gonna go anywhere. Just...keep...breathing…” She pressed his hand to her sternum. Let him feel her deep, steady inhale, and even slower exhale. She kept going, steadily, until Steve could match her pace.

Eventually, the tremors ceased. Steve panted, sweat trickling down to sting at his open cuts, his eyes blurred with tears.

The girl’s brow furrowed in concern. Steve realized his hand was still pressed to the bare (and surprisingly warm) skin of her chest and quickly withdrew.

“That better?” She asked. 

Normally, Steve might have snapped at the sympathy in her tone. Pity made him want to crawl out of his skin. He was too tired for anger just then, though. 

He nodded, and the girl rocked back on her heels, a little smile playing about her lips. 

“Good to hear, Bruised Brooklyn Boy. Now, what’s a nice kid like you doing in a nasty alley like this?”

Steve would have laughed, if he had the breath. It was something Bucky might have said.

“There...was a kid—”

The girl’s eyes flickered behind him. “Oh. I see ‘em. You okay if I go coax ‘em out? My name’s Darcelle, by the way. Or I guess it _was_ Darcelle. It’s Darcy now. Darcy, Savior of Brawling Bruised Brooklyn Boys and Fellow Alley Associates. But you can can me just Darcy. Who’re you?”

Steve managed a wheezy chuckle. Then, he passed out.

  
  



	2. Up and At Em

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve wakes up, and meets his rescuer properly.

“...couldn’t just leave him, May-may, he wasn’t lookin’ so hot…”

“Hot? He’s practically freezing, except where you crisped the shirt off his back!...”

“...aiming for the goonies...about ready to kill him…”

“I can fix the ribs and internal bleeding, maybe the shoulder too, but anymore will be suspicious…”

—————

When Steve finally came to, it was to the cheerful chatter of a foreign language, and the clink of dishware. He blinked up at a stretch of canvas (A ceiling?) before twisting his head to the side.

“You’re up!” The girl—Darcy—said cheerfully, hopping down from her seat atop a pile of crates. Before Steve could get a better bearing on his surroundings, she’d crowded into his space, blue eyes wide and shawls trailing.

Steve made an odd croaking sound when Darcy asked him how he felt. His throat was desert-dry. Hurriedly, Darcy pressed a warm mug into his hands. The amber liquid within turned out to be a sweet tea, spicier and more aromatic than anything Steve could remember from before the Depression hit.

“Here. Oh, May said you’d be dehydrated, I just got too excited to remember. May’s my sister, by the way—she healed you up. Well, what she could handle, anyways. That shiner’ll stay for a week still. It’s pretty. Not that injuries are pretty! Just, the colors are kinda interesting? Faces do weird things when they get hurt. May said it’ll hurt. I’m not great at healing. But I can fill a cup at least—” Here she paused to smile self-deprecatingly before plowing on. “—and scare off bullies! I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get there sooner, maybe I coulda done more. But I suppose you’ll both be alright, and that’s what really matters. Though I could pay them a visit later—”

  
Steve, sipping slowly, watched with interest as her expression jumped from nervous enthusiasm to dark contemplation. She didn’t even appear to draw breath. The seemingly endless stream of words was cut short by a sharp chirp in the same foreign tongue from earlier.

  
Steve craned his head around the space.  
Next to the crate Darcy had recently vacated, a child no older than twelve crouched atop another overturned box. Steve immediately recognized the pallid face.  
Now wrapped tightly in a heavy quilt, the kid peered suspiciously at Steve with dark, angular eyes that reminded him of Mr. Yee two apartments down. The urchin spoke again, the language nothing like Steve had ever heard before, all clicks and rolling vowels. Much to his surprise, Darcy responded in the same tongue, a wry smile pulling at her full lips.

  
Steve had been a little too starstruck, earlier, to realize just how _pretty_ she was. Even under the smudgy soot, Darcy seemed to glow: her grin was wide and unself-conscious, eyes glittering with mischief. _Trouble_ , Steve thought distractedly.

  
The sudden awareness flipped a switch. When her attention shifted back to him, Steve felt himself go red.

“Sorry, I kinda talked your ear off there.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s try this again. I’m just Darcy, and I hope you’re feeling better, Mr…?”

“Rogers. I mean, Steve. Just Steve.” Steve stumbled hoarsely, but offered a hand. Then, because he couldn’t leave well enough alone: “Nice to meet you, ‘ _Just Darcy_.’”

Darcy shook.

“Just Steve.” She repeated, solemnly. Except...there was a twitch at the corner of her lips, as if she were biting back a smile. The blue-green of her eyes twinkled with the same hidden laughter.

If Bucky were here, he would have tried a line. If Ma were here, she would have thanked Darcy for her help, then asked what could be done to repay the debt.  
Steve got the feeling Darcy would appreciate neither reaction.

“So… what did I miss?”

Apparently, Darcy had managed to coax the street urchin lurking behind the trash bins to come out, and hustled them both off to get Steve medical assistance.  
(The kid had been curled into a ball by the sewers when he came across the two thugs kicking and swearing at the quivering lump. They’d yelled for Steve to mind his own business. Steve had cheerily ignored them, because he “couldn’t walk away from an injustice if he were offered a million dollars,” as Ma often chastised him with equal parts pride and exasperation.)

Darcy somehow managed to drag both Steve and the urchin to her “home.” Steve remembered flashes of movement (maybe they carried him between them?) as he’d slipped from unconsciousness to painful reality and back again.  
Darcy gave a play-by-play of the shouting match between herself and her sister as they’d “desperately tried to snatch him [Steve] back from the jaws of death.” The fact that Steve felt right as rain (well, maybe a little bruised, but still quite alive) somewhat undercut the drama, as did the teasing wink Darcy gave when she said it.  
Throughout the animated retelling, Steve quietly sipped at his tea. He was never much good with talking to girls, and felt grateful for Darcy’s uninterrupted stream of conversation. He especially liked the way she never once seemed to expect more than a reactionary chuckle. Truth be told, he only had the energy to ask the occasional question.  
Darcy and her sister May lived in a makeshift tent, one of the many set up by homeless folks suffering from the worst of the economic collapse. Darcy waved off Steve’s worries about costing them important medical supplies.

“Seriously, lay off,” she laughed, when he pulled a Ma and insisted on some form of compensation. “We’re exactly where we want to be.”

Steve didn’t trust that for a minute, and was about to say so, when the tent flap was pulled open. A young woman who shared Darcy’s unruly brown locks and penchant for scarves ducked in.

  
May swept over the tent with an authoritative glance and clicked her tongue. “Well, he woke up after all. How’re you feeling, sweetheart?”

Steve would have bristled at the nickname (she couldn’t be more than a few years his senior. And who used ‘sweetheart’ besides Bucky at a dancehall or nuns about to give him a serious scolding?) As though sensing his discomfort, Darcy reached down to give his fingers a gentle squeeze.  
“Brooklyn Brawler Boy’s name is Steve. And he said he was doing better?” She turned to him curiously.

Steve squeezed her hand back. “Much better, thank you both. I, uh, shouldn’t impose any longer, so I’ll just—”

“Sit.”

Steve stopped trying to get to his feet. May nodded approvingly, as though she hadn’t just glared murder at his attempt to escape. Steve tried very hard not to breathe out of turn.  
Where Darcy’s eyes were lit with a cheerful intensity, May’s were sharp as spotlights. She reminded Steve of Sister Florian, the only adult he’d ever met that didn’t fall for Bucky’s boyish charm.  
May turned, saying something to the urchin in that same foreign language. The kid scuttled out of the tent. _Huh._

Steve didn't have much time to ponder the bizarrity of that interaction before May distracted him with a brisk check-up. Used to hospital visits, Steve responded automatically to the cool professionalism displayed by Darcy's older sister. Even if the venue was a little odd, May displayed all the technique of a trained professional.

“Darcy, would you heat up the kettle again?” Finally satisfied, May stripped off her gloves, tugging over a crate to sit down on.  
Darcy pulled a mock salute and dramatically frog-marched over to the kettle. She picked it up, flourished it dramatically (Steve coughed a snicker into his cup), and then--

Steve gasped as a burst of fire blew from between Darcy’s lips, engulfing the kettle. A sharp whistle of steam piped from the spout as the kettle turned red hot.

“How did you do that?” Steve blurted, at the same time May hissed, “Darcy!”

“What?” Darcy asked, smugly, smacking her lips. “I already did a...trick in the alley, May, just t’ scare off the bullies.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Steve. “Our Mama used to perform fire-tricks, yeah? And she taught me a thing or two.”

The spark in her eyes made her whole face light up again. Steve found himself grinning back at her, almost without meaning to. “That’s… really swell, Darcy. I’ve never met a spitfire before.”

  
For some reason, this made Darcy smile even brighter.

Meanwhile, May looked like she’d bitten down on a lemon. “Darcy, why don’t you take Steve home? His people are probably worried sick about him. Unless you have any other tricks you’d like to show off?”

“Well, there is this one…” Darcy laughed at May’s look of consternation. “Joking! Joking, May.”

She held out a hand. It took Steve perhaps a little too long to realize that he was meant to take it. Blushing hard enough to heat the tea kettle on his own, he hopped off the crate, gently set down his cup, and put his cold fingers in Darcy’s warm ones.  
Before she dragged him out of the tent completely, he turned to May. After a second spent trying to come up with words, he offered up a mild: “Thank you?” The squeak at the end made it sound like a question. He cleared his throat. “For your hospitality,” he added, deeper.  
May raised an unimpressed eyebrow.  
Steve was suddenly very grateful for Darcy’s firm grip, as she pulled him from the tent.

\-------------------------

A tent that was...smaller, from the outside. Steve blinked at it. Then Darcy tugged him along, fingers knit tight with his, and Steve put aside his dimensional questions.  
They went slow, so as not to aggravate Steve’s (surprisingly not-life-threatening) injuries. Steve enjoyed walking with Darcy. She skipped occasionally, humming to herself, and was cheerfully chatty enough that he never felt awkward.

  
Somehow, they ended up on the topic of European art. Steve finally found his voice, and spent the next two blocks in surprisingly animated conversation about the Viennese Secession. (Darcy knew an uncanny amount about the period, but Steve wasn’t about to look this gift horse in the mouth.)

  
_Hey Buck, I met a girl. She lives in a tent, saved me from a punch-up, breathes fire, and likes art. I’m pretty sure I’m dreaming._

  
It was growing dark by the time they reached Steve and Ma’s tiny flat. Steve, suddenly remembering his manners, started and turned to his rescuer: “Darcy, it’s swell of you to walk me home and all, but...I don’t know how safe it is for you to be goin’ back all on your own.”

Darcy’s smile lit up her whole face. “Aww, Steve!” She swung their hands together. “That’s real sweet. But I’ll be fine!”

When he tried to protest, she put a finger to his lips. Steve practically choked himself to a halt. Her hands smelled like...honey and woodsmoke. Not what he was expecting.

“Shush, worrywart.” Darcy’s eyes sparkled. “I swear, on my Grandma’s eternally sharp teeth, that I will make it home safe. As you said, I’m a spitfire. I can take care of myself.”

She wiggled her fingers, and Steve could swear he saw sparks flickering in the air between them.

All Steve’s protests about _the gentlemanly thing to do_ or _paying you back_ died on his lips. Instead, he blurted: “You’re...weird.”

For some reason, this caused Darcy to laugh, rather than slap him. “Absolutely! And I take great pleasure in it, cutie.” At her wink, he flushed. He seemed to be doing that a lot around Darcy…  
She very nearly (and very gently) manhandled him up to his doorstep, insisting all the while that he ought not to worry, and to apply an ointment May had made. She had just pressed a small jar into his hand, and started to skip down the steps, when Steve called out.

“Can I--can I see you again sometime?”

Immediately, he could feel Bucky shaking his head at him. _Stevie_ , he’d say, wincing, _you can’t go after a dame like that!_

Darcy paused. Blinked up at him.

“I’d like that.” For the first time, she seemed shy.

Darcy took three steps away, then spun around and darted back up the stairs. Before Steve could react, she’d pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “See you ‘round, Bruised Brooklyn Boy!”

  
And then she was gone.

  
Steve put a hand to his cheek.

  
The place where her lips had been, half a second before?

  
It burned.


End file.
